CHAPTER NINE
"There goes another one," Simeon said glumly.
A spot crawled through the plotting tank Simeon was screening on one wall of the lounge, trundling out of SSS-900-C's vicinity and heading for the low-mass zone and its interstellar transit.
"How did they find out?" Channa said.
"That's the Herod's Dream. She's an independent. One of those merchant-family ships that kick around the fringes, picking up stuff that's not worth the big outfits' while. They don't have to be told about trouble. They can smell it."
"I suppose it's understandable. They've sunk their savings in their ships which produce their livelihood." Channa sighed tolerantly. "What about the others?"
"They should be . . ." He broke off. "By Ghu!"
Channa also heard the tramp of boots in the hall and swiveled in her chair as a half-dozen variously dressed figures swung into the meeting room.
They may well head out again faster than they came in, Simeon thought as he watched captains file into the room in pairs, or clumps, or singly. As motley a crew as ever docked here. Shipsuits were designed to be comfortable under a pressure outfit. From there on, individuality was often loudly or vulgarly expressed by adjustments to that basic attire. For instance, the woman with the shaved, tattooed skull wore a particularly vile shade of pinkish blue that wasn't the least bit becoming—if highly visible. The two nonhumans didn't need to be anything but themselves to fit in with the other surly faces. They know something's up, but at least they came to listen, unlike those who scampered.
What the hell, he thought with a mental sigh, we'll use what we've got and be glad we've got it to use.
As the captains began to fill the room, few taking chairs at the table, Channa, looking far too elegant in a light blue suit, had gone to the head of the conference table. When a minute had passed with no new arrivals, she opened her notescreen on the podium and looked out at the assembled captains, waiting for them to settle. Especially after a couple of Vicker's part-time police appeared just beyond the entrance, with breather masks and gas projectors as well as shock rods and dart guns. Channa made a note to remind Vicker that the enemy was not yet here and not to make enemies out of anyone else just now.
"Thank you all for coming," she said.
You're probably wondering why I've called you here today, Simeon thought, anticipating Channa's opening words.
"No doubt you're wondering why we've asked you here," Channa said.
Close, but no cigar.
"Station SSS-900-C is currently involved in an emergency. I am Channa Hap, brawn to Simeon and we are invoking section two, article two of the station's charter." Which she tried to read out so that everyone knew the station had the right to commandeer their vessels.
A roar, surprisingly loud from so few throats though the non-humans helped a lot, swelled through tie room, drowning her out. An occasional "whereas" or "said captain" were all that could be heard.
Let 'em get it out of their systems, Simeon thought. It was understandable—breaking schedule would be expensive, particularly for the small companies and the independents. Hopefully they'd be more cooperative afterwards. In any case, he had control of them all, either because their ships docked to the station or their skippers were attending this meeting. And nobody was going to leave without accepting an assignment. Not a single captain here had an ounce of altruism, but station vouchers would be valid anywhere on their routes. There'd be insurance when the dust settled but, psychologically, neither voucher or insurance-when-it-might-be-paid was as comforting as cash-in-hand.
At last they wound down. Simeon turned his volume up to an almost painful level.
"Sit down, please."
The mechanical roar filled the room. He added subsonics that ought to make the humans feel uncertain and cowed.
"Now that I have your complete attention," he said suavely, adjusting to a more bearable level, "I'd like to remind you that we have duly declared an emergency."
He paused and examined the defiant, angry faces. "The station is expecting to be under attack shortly."
Another roar, this time of fear.
"SHUT UP." A second's pause. "Thank you very much. We're all in this together. Except that you gentlebeings are going to get away safely, which is more than the rest of us can look forward to. Please keep that in mind.
"Now," he went on, "we're going to evacuate everyone we can; children under twelve and pregnant women first, of course. They number eight hundred, give or take a few." Not all that many, but passenger facilities on freighters were generally nonexistent or cramped cubicles. Adding any more bodies would make a voyage of weeks uncomfortable, but would at least keep life in those bodies. "I want to reduce all the edible supplies on the station, so commissary is advised to stock you up to your comtowers." There was a murmur of appreciation. "However, at this moment in time, I cannot guarantee full compensation for cargo or non-delivery fines. I'd like to and you'll probably get it, but I can't guarantee it."
"Just a damn minute!" a stocky captain with a bulldog face roared. "Who's attacking the station? We're three month's transit time from any trouble, and that's minor."
"Pirates," Simeon said succinctly and that one word was sufficient to cause sturdy captains, and even one nonhuman, to pale. He waited as accusations and counter-accusations bounced about the hall, noticing hands going to belts that were, by station regulation, empty of accustomed defensive implements. This time it was Channa who brought them back to order.
Adjusting the volume on her microphone to the highest notch, she bellowed, "SIT DOWN!"
"As you were," Simeon said sweetly. "Could we consider any further riots as done and noted, and not waste valuable escape time? As I started to explain, a complement of four, heavily armed, pirate ships were in pursuit of the colony ship that . . . ah . . . docked here yesterday. Having ascertained details from the survivors of that vessel, we are reliably informed that these pirates were in hot pursuit. We are given the distinct impression that these pirates will either destroy the station immediately, or strip it of everything valuable and then destroy it. We have to evacuate as many as possible, which isn't that many, even if you are generous in your assistance. But you're all we have to save as many as we can. Sorry."
"You're sorry?" the bulldog was on his feet again. "You're sorry! I'm supposed to leave my cargo behind for pirates and you're sorry? Well, I'm sorry, too, cause 'sorry' don't pay no bills!"
"Captain . . . Bolist," Channa said smoothly, checking the list on her notescreen, "you're telling me that a cargo of . . . chemical salts is more important to you than saving the lives of forty children, which is the number that can be accommodated on the size of vessel you command?"
The man lowered his head, like a bull considering a charge. "Ms. Hap, me and mine worked for forty years to get the Gung Ho. We're still paying off our loans. Losing a major cargo—we'll pay forfeits if we don't get the load to Kobawaslo et Filles—could break us. Then we'll be on the beach. Hell, I like kids s'much as the next guy, but a man's gotta live."
"Well, then, Captain, you'll be pleased to know that children are much lighter than chemical salts. Exchanging one for the other should get you well out of the danger zone in excellent time." Channa gave him a pleasant smile, and held his gaze until the man's eyes dropped. "Yes, you have a question?" And she pointed to the shaven, tattooed captain who had leaped to her feet, waving both hands to be heard.
When the question of how to deal with pregnant women giving birth on her ship was satisfactorily settled by assuring her of a trained medic in her consignment, she subsided.
In the end, all capitulated, but nine begged a few hours' leeway to ditch and buoy-mark such cargoes that a period in space wouldn't damage beyond use.
"Phew," Simeon said as the captains walked out. "That was unpleasant."
"Not by comparison," Channa said grimly.
"Comparison to what?"
"Announcing it to the station," she said.
"Oh."
* * *
"You are shitting me, Joat," Seld Chaundra said scornfully. "Pirates! What do you think I am? A playschool kid?"
Yes, Joat thought. "I am not lying, shit-for-brains," she said.
They were in Seld's quarters, which were comprised of a bedroom and study, off his father's suite near the main sickbay in North Sphere. The study was crammed with ship models and holoposters, most of them from travel catalogues but a few from adventure serials. Joat particularly liked the one of the bug-eyed man screaming in the jaws of one fanged head of a three-headed monster which waved him above the rubble of a burning building. Curiously enough, the man resembled the captain who had won her from her uncle.
"Gimme another bar," she added. Seld flipped it over from the sofa where he sprawled. Joat caught it out of midair and discarded the wrapper on the floor. Seld winced but said nothing.
"How can you eat so many of those things?" he asked as she gobbled it.
"Gotta eat 'em while the getting's good," she replied, chewing with her mouth open. He winced again. He's a wuss, she thought. "Anyway, they're supposed to be here soon."
"Suuuuure."
Suddenly Seld was tumbled backward against the back of the sofa. He gave a strangled squawk as Joat's thin strong hands, crossed at the wrist, gripped his jacket below the throat. Her bony knuckles dug painfully into his windpipe. He couldn't breathe at all, as she was also kneeling on his stomach.
"Look, you wuss—"
"I am not a wuss!" he wheezed.
"—and I am not shitting you! Here." She let him up, marched over to his work table and slapped a chip on the receiver plate of his screen. It lit, showing the control lounge and Simeon's pillar, the shouting captains surging around it.
Seld listened open-mouthed. "Pirates," he concurred weakly. "Hey! That's private, you stole that chip!"
"Did not, just jacked the feed and copied it."
"Unauthorized copying is stealing, Joat. And eavesdropping on official meetings is . . ." Seld trailed off, unable to identify the offense though he knew it must be one.
Fardling wuss, she thought. He sounds just like his father when he says things like that. Yet his father was a lot nicer than hers had been. Her memories of paternal care were the kind you woke up at night sweating from. Hopefully he was dead from Jeleb nightmare-smoke by now. Her uncle had been worse, after he took her over, but at least she knew her uncle was dead. She pushed such thoughts aside as time wasters.
"Okay, I'm a Sendee mud-puppy eavesdropper and data-bandit—so listen to what they're saying, will you?"
Seld blinked and did so. "Holy shit," he whispered. "We are going to be attacked by pirates." His eyes lit. "Hey, Joat, this is like a holo."
Joat kicked him.
"What did you do that for?" he demanded, outraged.
"Because I like you, fool," she said.
"You do?" he said, straightening up and then wincing. "Hell of a way to show it, fardler."
"Fardler yourself. This ain't no holo, Seld. Those pirates, those Kolnari, are for real. Half the outies on that ship that nearly clipped the station were dead, osco. That's d-e-a-d, dead, finished, off to the big tax-haven in the afterglow, dead. This is major criminal we're talking, Seld. Like, we could get seriously fardled up—you, me, Simeon, Channa, your dad."
"Yeah," Seld said, in a small voice, looking totally scared. "But what can we do?" That word came wobbling out as Seld tried not to show Joat how frightened he really was.
"Come close and listen to momma," she said. "Simeon has some ideas. I got more."
* * *
Rachel bint Damscus sat and shivered on the edge of the bed. There was nothing under it. Not even legs to hold it up, just some sort of field mechanism, yet it did not move. She shivered again, looking down at the pill in her hand. The strange dark man they called Doctor Chaundra had given it to her, saying that it would make her feel better. She didn't want to feel better. She wanted to feel pain, because pain told her she was still alive.
Her eyes flicked around the little cubicle. There was a sink in the corner. She darted to it and threw the pill down the drain, scrabbling at the unfamiliar controls until a gush of water followed it. Then she scrambled back to the bed, humiliatingly conscious of how the thin hospital gown revealed her body. Conscious also of the emotions roiling beneath the surface of her mind, like great boulders grinding and moving in the dark. . . .
I wish I was home, she thought desolately. But home was gone, further than all the light-years between this accursed place and the sun Saffron. Home had been in Keriss . . . Keriss was poisoned dust floating in Bethel's skies. Mother, she thought, father. Little sister Delilah.
Most of the other Bethelites who escaped had been from the Sierra Nueva lands. Amos' family had been direct descendants of the Prophet, members of the Synod of Patriarchs for twenty generations. They had owned the city of Elkbre outright and tens of thousands of square kilometers around it. And they had always been an enlightened family, as much as any, more than most. Hence, the Second Revelation had spread widely there. Rachel had come to it late. After I heard Amos speak, she thought, burying her face in her hands. He was like the Prophet come again. A new voice, sweeping away the intolerable stuffy load of convention. And he is so beautiful. . . .
The partition door opened. Joseph came through first, one hand tinder the flap of his jacket as was his custom. Amos followed, and Rachel flung herself forward into his arms, gripping him fiercely. It was a moment before she felt the awkwardness with which he patted her back. She withdrew, clutching at the gown. That only emphasized its skimpiness, and she flushed deeply, looking down at the floor.
"Pardon, excellent sir," she said.
He made a dismissive gesture. "No need to be formal, Rachel," he said. "You are well?"
"Relieved," she said. "They would only say that you would return, but not where you had been taken or why. Where have you been?" She raised her eyes anxiously to his face.
He hesitated for a moment. "Joseph and I have been meeting with the station managers. We have arranged a funeral service for those who died on our journey here."
She turned aside to spare his embarrassment. "They are not to be trusted."
"What do you mean, Rachel?" His tone was apprehensive but also stern.
"Nothing, yet," she said sullenly, hanging her head. Then she grasped his wrist painfully tight, meeting his eyes earnestly. "But who knows? They are mezamerin." Strangers. In the ancient liturgical language, infidel.
"Rachel, do not start parroting the Elders at this late date," Joseph said in exasperation. More gently, he put a hand on her shoulder. "Did you take the medication?"
"Yes," she said brusquely, shrugging off his hand. Then she turned to Amos with a sigh. "I am sorry, Excell . . . Amos."
The memory swept over her again: the crowded chamber and the sickly-sweet taste at the back of her mouth as the coldsleep injection took effect.
"I . . . thought I had died, when I woke here," she said. "My father . . . did I tell you?"
"No," Amos said, taking her hand. His large dark-blue eyes held a sudden compassion. "He cursed you?"
"Yes. When I left home to follow you, he put the Patriarch's curse upon me: hell, and miserable rebirth, and damnation again, forever."
Amos blanched slightly for, though his father had been disappointed in his son, even appalled by his son's apostasy, he had not uttered the curse. Perhaps that would have come about had his father not died during Amos' early teens. If I had been cursed? Perhaps that was why I, fatherless, could become the leader of the Second Revelation, he thought. What courage my followers had, to dare the curse for me!
"I thought I was damned indeed," she whispered. "Since I awoke . . . I . . . I really do not feel myself, Amos."
"It is to be expected," he said, patting her cheek. "You will feel better soon."
"And did you tell them of what follows us?" she asked, blurting out the words since his touch had given her the courage to speak them. "Have they defenses?"
Joseph had been brooding, facing slightly away. Now he laughed bitterly. "Defenses? These people are as open as a canal-side harlot."
Rachel drew a shocked breath.
"You forget yourself, Joseph," Amos said as Rachel drew closer to his side, an instinctive move toward his protection. "There is a lady present."
The shorter man bowed. "Apologies, Excellent Sir," he replied stiffly. A deeper bow. "My lady."
"I cast your own words back, my brother—do not imitate the Elders," Amos said. Unnoticed, Rachel stiffened.
"Is it true?" she said. "They have no defenses?"
Amos nodded, his mouth drawn into a line. "Yes. These are peaceful people, as we were. Fortunately, they are in communication with the Navy of the Central Worlds. Unfortunately, the Kolnari will be here before that help arrives."
Rachel gasped. "How can we flee from here?"
"We cannot," Amos replied, shrugging away the chance of flight. "There are ships, but they are small and have no facilities for passengers. Children, those with child, and the infirm are to be evacuated. The rest of us must remain here and seek to delay the enemy."
"They will know us!" she said in a trembling voice.
Joseph shook his head. "I think not, Lady bint Damscus," he said formally. "Not in this place, and among such as inhabit it. Already we have seen more races of men than I knew existed outside legend. Some very different customs," he pulled his mouth down in disapproval, "and non-men as well."
Rachel's eyes went wide. The most cogent incentive for the Exodus to Bethel had been the Prophet's determination not to pollute the pure blood by congress with non-humans. Nonhuman intelligence was the creation of Shaithen, whether flesh or machine.
Joseph made a soothing gesture. "They are not rulers here. Still, among so many and so various, our handful will disappear and not be remarked by the Kolnari for what we are. The fiends must believe that they strike without warning, that no help will be called to this station. So they will wait, thinking to feast at their ease. Then the warships will come, to rescue us—and return us to our poor Bethel."
"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "I had not thought of . . . returning."
"In a sense," Amos began, and her eyes snapped back to him with a fixed attention, "we have won the war. Now we must try to survive it. Please, Rachel my sister, would you go among the other women and children? They are awakening, and will be lost and frightened. Prepare those who are eligible to leave here."
"I obey, Amos." She looked around, realizing that she could not go even among women and children of her own people in what she wore.
Joseph opened one of the closets and handed her a large, shapeless robe. Rachel nodded a distant thanks before she donned it and left, the full folds sweeping behind her.
"We have something we share, she and I," Joseph said bitterly, throwing himself down in his float chair. Even his solid bulk did not make it bob on its supporting field. Amos noted the fact and filed it.
I must make a quick review, he thought. Find what technologies have arisen during our isolation on Bethel. Whatever supports the chair could be altered to support other heavy weights.
"What do you share?" he asked the other man.
"We both aspire above our stations, she and I," Joseph replied.
Amos blinked in surprise. "Oh," he said after a moment. "Sits the wind so? I had thought her merely devoted to the cause."
"So she is, but that is not the whole story."
"Even if we followed the old customs, I would not take her even as a second wife," he said with a dismissive shrug. "Since I have not even a first, speculation is useless." Then he raised one eyebrow. "You have not pressed your suit?"
"Was there time?" Joseph asked rhetorically. Then he sighed. "Amos, could you see me going to her father for permission? Bastard son of a whore and a dockside pimp he would have called me, whether he had disowned her or no—and it would be no more than the truth."
Amos laughed grimly and thumped his follower on the shoulder. "Joseph, my brother, you are a bold man who has saved my life more than once. But there are times when you allow your birth to blind you as much as any hidebound Elder."
At Joseph's puzzled look, he continued. "Joseph, where did Rachel's father live?"
"Keriss—ah! I see."
"Where did the Elders live, for the most part?"
"Keriss—and those that did not, they were in the city for the council meeting," Joseph said. "You have had time to think, eh?"
"It is necessary that someone do so," Amos said. "We of the Second Revelation were planning to leave, to escape the bonds of customs gone sterile in their changelessness, Joseph. When—if—we return to Bethel with the Space Navy at our backs, very little will remain unchanged after what the Kolnari have done. God has given us a sharp lesson. If we ignore the universe, the universe will not necessarily ignore us. And on Bethel . . . the last shall be first, and the first, last; that at the very least.
"Furthermore," he went on, with a man-to-man grin, "I now stand in her father's place, in law. I hereby formally give you leave to press your suit, and for the marriage portion, I will dower her with the Gazelle Rancho at Twin Springs."
Joseph's laughter matched his leader's. "I may press, but I doubt she notices my existence," he said. "Consent may be as far away as the Rancho." A pause. "Although that is where I would take her to live, if we were wed and our cause victorious. She is stronger than she suspects, I think—but her liking for the new ways you preach is of the head, not here." He touched his heart. "As lady of an estate, there would she be happy. She would not thrive among strangers."